The Grading Podcast

Alternative grading depends on meaningful feedback and opportunities for students to revise their work, but how can instructors sustain those feedback loops without becoming overwhelmed by the workload? In this episode, Sharona and Boz welcome back longtime friend of the podcast and high school English teacher Joe Zeccola to explore the feedback bottleneck in alternative grading. Inspired by a Lin...

What would a college look like if grades had never been part of its educational system? In this episode, Sharona and Boz welcome four guests from The Evergreen State College—Rachel Hastings, JuliA Metzger, Nathalie Yuen, and Julia Zay. They take us on a journey to explore an institution that has operated without traditional grades since its founding more than 50 years ago. At Evergreen, narrative...

What if reducing the emphasis on grades could create more opportunities for students to think deeply, collaborate meaningfully, and develop their own ideas before turning to AI for help? In this episode, Sharona and Boz explore “Talking Is Also Thinking: How Teaching Students to Coach Each Other Before They Write Makes AI Shortcuts Less Tempting,” a guest post by Zia Hassan on the Grading for Grow...

What if students could earn honors recognition without enrolling in a separate honors class—and without simply doing more work? In this episode, Sharona and Boz welcome back Marc Aronson, who oversees faculty and the academic program at Cheshire Academy, for a follow-up to their conversation in Episode 114. A year after introducing a system that allows students to earn honors designations by demon...

What happens when an alternatively graded course moves from the planning stage into an actual classroom? Six weeks into teaching Quantitative Reasoning for Everyday Life for the first time, Sharona goes on the hot seat as Boz asks how the course she spent the summer designing is actually working. They revisit the central idea that finally brought together a seemingly disconnected course in voting,...

If higher education says its students are learning, how do we actually know? In this episode, Sharona and Boz dig into Doug Lederman’s three-part series on measuring learning in higher education, focusing on his proposed path forward and the questions that have to come before choosing an assessment. What should students actually know and be able to do? Who gets to decide? Should we measure whether...

What do students believe grades are supposed to do? In this episode, Sharona and Boz explore that question through three recent articles written by student journalists about traditional and alternative grading. Their arguments surface beliefs that are deeply embedded in our educational culture: that letter grades provide objective information about learning, that grades motivate students to work h...

With grading reform receiving increasing attention across both K–12 and higher education, how do we turn growing interest into change that actually lasts? In this episode, Sharona and Boz explore The Five Ps of Starting and Sustaining Grading Reform , a framework developed by Matt Townsley and colleagues for moving grading reform beyond the work of individual educators and toward broader instituti...

When students can outsource much of their schoolwork to generative AI, is the answer to make assignments harder to cheat on? Or is it to make learning more worth doing? In this episode, Sharona and Boz are joined by writer, educator, and Inside Higher Ed columnist John Warner, author of More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI . Drawing on two decades of teaching writing and hi...

What happens when one of the world’s leading technology institutions concludes that responding to generative AI requires more than deciding when students should or shouldn’t be allowed to use it? In this episode, Sharona and Boz dig into a new report from MIT’s Ad Hoc Committee on AI Use in Teaching, Learning, and Research Training, which calls on the institution to reconsider what students need t...

What does alternative grading look like when your class has 300 students—and what happens when generative AI forces you to rethink a system that had been working? In this episode, Sharona and Boz are joined by Jordan Kostiuk, Associate Teaching Professor of Mathematics at Brown University, to talk about his use of team-based inquiry learning and mastery-based grading in a large, coordinated linear...

What happens when a university responds to concerns about grades not by limiting A’s, but by making first-semester grades largely disappear? In this episode, Sharona and Boz examine the University of Michigan College of Literature, Science, and the Arts’ new First Semester Grade Covering Pilot Program, which will replace visible letter grades for first-semester students with pass/no-pass marks beg...

Recorded live at MathFest 2026 in Boston, this special episode brings together mathematics faculty from institutions across the country for a wide-ranging conversation about alternative grading. With the practice becoming increasingly visible in mathematics education, Sharona invites the group to reflect on what they are hearing, questioning, and thinking about as they move through the conference....

What if the biggest challenge facing education isn't grading—but our assumptions about school itself? In this episode, Sharona and Boz welcome anthropologist and author Susan Blum for a wide-ranging conversation about how her research into plagiarism led her to question the fundamental purpose of grades, assessment, and formal education. Drawing on her books Ungrading and Schoolishness , Susan ref...

Few people have had a greater influence on the alternative grading movement than Linda Nilson. In this episode, Sharona and Boz welcome the author of Specifications Grading and Specifications Grading 2.0 to reflect on the origins of one of the most widely adopted approaches to grading reform. Linda shares the experiences that led her to question traditional points-based grading, the ideas she comb...

Alternative grading systems are never really finished. They evolve as instructors learn more about their students, their courses, and their own teaching. In this reflective episode, Sharona and Boz use a recent six-year retrospective by mathematics instructor Hilary Freeman as a springboard for exploring what long-term iteration looks like in practice. Rather than focusing on how to implement an a...

Specifications grading has become one of the most influential approaches in the alternative grading movement, but how has the model evolved since Linda Nilson first introduced it more than a decade ago? In this episode, Sharona and Boz sit down with Joe Packowski to discuss the newly released second edition of Specifications Grading and the journey that led him from a 25-year career in industry to...

The 2026 Grading Conference brought together hundreds of educators from across disciplines to share research, classroom innovations, and practical strategies for rethinking assessment. In this episode, Sharona and Boz are joined by conference organizers Katie Mattaini and Drew Lewis to reflect on the conversations, presentations, and emerging themes that stood out most this year. Rather than provi...

One of the biggest objections to alternative grading is also one of the most practical: How can this possibly work in large classes? In this episode, Sharona and Boz welcome computer science professor Craig Zilles to explore what happens when technology is designed not just to make grading easier, but to make better assessment practices possible. Craig shares how his own experiments with second-ch...

In this episode, Sharona and Boz sit down with renowned mathematics education researcher Peter Liljedahl to explore the often-overlooked connection between classroom pedagogy and grading practices. Best known for his influential work on Building Thinking Classrooms , Peter shares his own journey into alternative grading, from questioning traditional percentage-based systems to developing approache...

In this behind-the-scenes episode, Sharona and Boz take listeners inside the early stages of designing a brand-new (to Sharona) course: a general education quantitative reasoning class she affectionately describes as “Math for Humans.” Using the conversation itself as a form of reflective practice, Sharona and Boz unpack the challenges of building a grading architecture, selecting meaningful asses...

In this episode, Sharona and Boz welcome back David Clark to unpack his recent end-of-semester “3x3x3” reflection blog post for Grading for Growth. Using a structure of three surprises, three lessons learned, and three lingering questions, the conversation explores everything from refining standards-based grading systems after more than a decade of iteration to the growing reality that students th...

In this episode, Sharona and Boz welcome back Dan Guberman to discuss his new book, Designing Impactful College Courses: Applying Self-Determination Theory to Unleash the Potential of Autonomy-Supportive Learning Environments. The conversation explores how self-determination theory, which is a framework centered on autonomy, competence, and relatedness, provides a powerful lens for understanding b...

In this episode, Sharona and Boz are joined by Dan Guberman and Kimberly Ellen Hall to reflect on a recent Grading for Growth post exploring how alternative grading can make teaching more joyful. The conversation moves beyond the usual student-centered arguments for grading reform and instead examines how abandoning points-based systems can fundamentally transform instructors’ relationships with t...

In this episode, Sharona and Boz are joined by Teresa Focarile, Director of Educational Development at Boise State University, to discuss her first semester implementing an alternative grading system in an Introduction to Theater course. Teresa shares how moving away from weighted averages toward a blend of specifications and mastery-based grading transformed not only the clarity of her course, bu...